Average Customer Review: ( 19 customer reviews )
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31 of 31 found the following review helpful:
 Pretty good buy Jul 06, 2000
By Tom Beard
This saw is just light enough to be in the portable catagory, with two people it's easy as pie. The rip fence is very smooth and accurate and will rip to about 15" on the right hand side(Hitachi could do better here). A few concerns I have on this saw since I've put it through the works: The motor "spindal assembly" seems to have abit too much in/out freeplay for me. Secondly the miter guage is too short for much over a 2" board. This miter guage is great when it is fully in its slot, but very sloppy if miter cutting much over a 2" wide board. Last is the height of the throat plate-it needs to be shimmed since the work will drop a bit as it is fed through the saw. Affordable but not perfect yet.
62 of 69 found the following review helpful:
Ok saw. Jan 16, 2002
I purchased this table saw two years ago. It arrived on time and in perfect condition. The manual is well written and is easy to follow. The assembly and set-up was easy and all the parts fit and lined up well.What I Liked:
1) The motor is very strong and never bogs down, great motor.
2) It is the only saw in this price range that you can use a stacked dato blade on, (A wobbel type dado blade is to wide to fit)the instructions recomend a 6 inch dado, i used and 8 inch and it worked fine. But you can only safely stack the dado blades to 1/2 inch thick cut and still get all the threds on th arbor nut on the arbor.
3) The fence is smooth, accurate, and works well.
4) The Stand is very nice.
5) The dust collection port is very nice and works very well, the saw blade is surrounded by a heavy sheet metal dust collection boot attached to a nice 45 degree connector to attach to your dust collection system.
6) The blade that comes with it is ok (It lasted me three years and was only sharpened once. A Forrest blade is awsome, is used the Hitachi blade on all my rough carpentry.
7) The aluminum table is flat and works well.
8) It is fairly light weight, but it takes two people to move easitly.
9) It will fit through a standard door with no dissassembly. Can't do that with my new huge 400+ pound table saw! Dislikes:
1) The sliding mitre guage fence is not accurate, lots of play in the mitre groves.
2)The arbor has a littel more play in it then i would like, you can wiggle the balde slightly, on a Delta, Jet or Grizzley there is no wiggle at all.
3) It is very dificult to get the blade to 90 degrees or 45 degrees accuratly using the saws adjustable stops. I used an accurate square and triangle every time I moved the blade to make sure it actually was square or at 45 degrees. A bgi annoyance!
4) The blade insert / throat plate sits slightly below the table level. Very annoying when cutting small peices of wood where it could tilt slightly down onto the blade insert. There are no leveling screws or easy way to fix this. I epoxied a peice of oak to it and sanded it until it was flush with the table.
5) It is pretty darn loud. Wear ear plugs! Recomendations: I learned my lesson. The Hitachi is ok but... Always buy good expensive tools. Buy a Table saw that costs $850 or more. I sold my Hitachi to a friend who loves it, he is a rough carpenter though. I bought a really nice table saw for Christmass. It is so very much better then the Hitachi. I never have to adjust or mess with the new saw, it runs silently and is ready to go with no fuss. I had know idea that a good table table saw was so much better to use and so much less fuss until i bought one. Good tools work much, much, much, much better then cheap ones. They are so much easier, accurate, and user freindly. Thinking about a cheap table saw... don't do it. Always buy the expensive good one, you will be much happier.
Try the Grizzley, Delta, Jet, or that other one I cant remember the name of!
22 of 23 found the following review helpful:
 This is a [cut-rate] saw Jul 12, 2001
This saw has limited uses. It rips well, through 12/4 maple even. But that's about it. The miter gauge is terrible. It has way too much slop for accurate cuts. And the unconventional 5/8" T-track will not accept any other miter gauges -- or tenoning jigs or anything else for that matter. The only way I've been able to make accurate crosscuts with this saw was to build a plywood sled that spans the blade and rides in both the left and right tracks, and this was difficult because I had to mill stock to the cross-section of the T-track. My biggest beef, however, is with the blade height adjustment. There is no way to lock it down. And with the way that 15-amp motor rattles the light aluminum body, the blade moves up -- or down -- every time you start up the saw. This is fine for ripping and cutting, but unacceptable for dado work. If I need a precise cutting depth, I have to rig up a clamp to keep the blade-height-adjustment crank from moving as the saw vibrates. But hey, what can you expect for the price of this saw. This is a [cut-rate]saw. For carpentry, O.K. For fine woodworking, dig deeper into your wallet and get something better.
22 of 23 found the following review helpful:
Pretty Good, some rough spots Sep 27, 2001
By John Nicosia
I love this saw but it has a few rough spots. The saw was out of adjustment out of the box in 2 aspects. 1. Squareness of blade to the table and 2. parallel-ness to the miter gauge. I tried to adjust it according to the manual but there was so much thread lock on the adjustment screws it broke my screwdriver and stripped the screw heads... Good points: Powerful, nice compromise in size and weight for a portable, big table. Great Fence. Sturdy stand. Unbelieveable price. Hitachi needs to tighten up the quality at that Taiwan plant and they will have a winner.
19 of 20 found the following review helpful:
 Best deal for the buck Jul 21, 2000
By J. Fox
Dollar for dollar, this is the best deal in table saws. There seems to be two types of table saws - toys and monsters. This one is small enough to move out of the way when not in use yet a large enough table top for the serious home project carpenter. For a few dollars more than a high quality circular saw its the best value table saw out there. Its well constructed, high quality, excellent motor, and sturdy. With the stand included is good to go out of the box.
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based on 19 reviews
